The criminal organization that masquerades as a political party -- that would be the Democratic Party, for those new to this racket -- is now transforming itself into a criminal organization that masquerades as... a criminal organization! It's just that they're now calling ex-cons "returned citizens," as in "returned from the Big House," not that once-in-a-lifetime trip to Paris. It's like TNR for humans, minus the "neuter" part! The Washington Post reports on the ongoing shenanigans in its home town:

Above an official portrait of Mayor Vincent C. Gray, crisp silver lettering spells out a welcome to one of the shiniest new places in D.C. government — the Office on Returning Citizen Affairs. And on a flier lying nearby: “YOU CAN LEGALLY VOTE!” The bustling facility is designed solely for convicted criminals, a center for training, job placement, housing services and other programs for a slice of the population growing by thousands each year. Ex-offenders account for at least one in 10 D.C. residents and perhaps many more. That makes them a potentially pivotal, if uncertain, voting bloc — and a highly coveted target that no political campaign has ignored in the tightening April 1 Democratic primary for mayor. Every mayoral candidate has promised something. Any taboo that previously muted politicking with prisoners, some of whom once preyed on city residents, has fallen away in favor of winning a few thousand votes that could tip the balance in a close race.

I bet it could. The new bureaucracy is called ORCA for short, and you can check it out at the link. Here's a handy clip-'n-save:

The Democratic Party has always appealed to the basest instincts of the American people, molting and changing shape as the political winds dictated but solely devoted to its raison d’être: the accumulation and retention of political power. As it evolved over the course of the late 19th century, its chief mechanism became, in essence, bribery – not simply of civil officials but of the public itself. It’s unclear who said, “A Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only last until the citizens discover they can vote themselves largesse out of the public treasury.” But that may as well be the party’s animating ethos: “social justice” disguised as sympathy or, worse, compassion. Always wrapping itself in the false cloak of righteousness and celebrating the folk wisdom of the demos, the Democrats have consistently championed class envy, social division, and often – quite nakedly – racism, if they thought it would buy them votes. Only the Democrats could reinvent themselves so effortlessly, molting from the party of the Ku Klux Klan to the party of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. From the party of the aggressive atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair, who destroyed school prayer and helped set the country on its downward moral spiral in 1963, to the party of Bible-toting Baptist presidents (Bill Clinton) and the racist ravings of Obama’s pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. When your only principle is power, it’s easy to embrace flexibility and nuance. This amoral relativism raised to a high art of hypocrisy – for such it is – at the party’s core has long posed the most potent threat to its continuing existence; therefore, it is the one aspect of its nature that must be most assiduously concealed and obscured.

So I, for one, welcome this exciting new development in potential electoral chicanery. The franchise was once so sacred that it was restricted to people with skin in the game. Today, it's a right -- to be exercised as often as possible, with no untoward legal consequences. Unfortunately for our representative democracy, it's become the right to keep the Democrats in power by, in the words of their famous phrase, "any means necessary." Hey, it works for them. What works for us?